The Democratic Congress has already been distracted from working legislation through Republican filibusters by the need to investigate the administration on thousands of discrete violations of the public trust. TPM Muckraker points to one example in the linked story in the LA Times today.
Congressional critics launched an offensive against the Bush administration Thursday for denying California and other states the right to adopt strict curbs on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.It's utterly mysterious to me that the Congressional Leadership doesn't really understand that the American people put them in power largely to pursue impeachment. (Polls? Bah. They're my people.) We really have to discover and unwind what's been going on over the past several years, to undo the damage and to keep bad actors away from future public policy decisions. It's necessary to the working of the country, and it's something that the president has the power and apparent inclination to disrupt.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said she would consider issuing a subpoena for documents that might show White House interference in the Dec. 19 decision to deny California a waiver to enact its own rules under the Clean Air Act.
"This outrageous decision . . . is completely contrary to the law and science," Boxer said in a briefing with state officials at Los Angeles City Hall. She held up an empty cardboard box as a symbol of the Environmental Protection Agency's refusal so far to provide the hefty technical and legal backup that normally accompanies air pollution waiver decisions and are usually published in the Federal Register.
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"Subpoena these guys," [California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, who sued the EPA last week in an effort to overturn the decision] urged Boxer. "Send the marshals out. Get them to tell us under oath. They are not going to get away with this. Sooner or later, we are going to uncover real corruption . . . that is dangerous to California and to the whole world."
Brown said that the Bush administration may be able to delay court action a year, until the president's term is over, but that Congress may be able to speed the process. "What you have is a bunch of scofflaws in the White House," he said. "This fellow Johnson is becoming a stooge in a really pathetic drama that hopefully will not play out much longer."
So, we have to remove him from power before he can do that, making Nancy Pelosi the 44th President of the United States. George McGovern has picked up this theme. We can assume that he got it here, as it's safe to say that former major party presidential nominees are faithful readers of this blog, and call it a 'malecho.'
[T]he case for impeaching Bush and Cheney is far stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew after the 1972 election. The nation would be much more secure and productive under a Nixon presidency than with Bush. Indeed, has any administration in our national history been so damaging as the Bush-Cheney era?As I've mentioned, in what, to be fair, we might call a 'wexecho', Congressman Robert Wexler of (parts of) Palm Beach, Florida, is ... as far as I can tell, repurposing his reëlection fund to advertise for impeachment. I don't know if that's proper, or even legal, but you know what? I'm going to give him $100.
How could a once-admired, great nation fall into such a quagmire of killing, immorality and lawlessness?
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[W]e must still urge Congress to act. Impeachment, quite simply, is the procedure written into the Constitution to deal with presidents who violate the Constitution and the laws of the land. It is also a way to signal to the American people and the world that some of us feel strongly enough about the present drift of our country to support the impeachment of the false prophets who have led us astray. This, I believe, is the rightful course for an American patriot.
Done.
Who's with me?
4 comments:
I be with you on impeachment, but the idea of limiting emissions on cars and trucks doesn't make any sense, and the EPA is right to step in. Either stopping cars will cripple the economy, in which case the ruling won't last, or alternatively, by increasing efficiency it will spur economic growth, in which case by putting more money in the pockets of the people, more money will get spent on products from China made with coal. Even if people power up their cars with electricity, the juice is going to come from new coal plants in Nevada and Utah.
So yeah, impeach the President, but knock some sense into Barbara Boxer too. Tackling global warming requires real, not just feel good solutions.
Ah ... maybe we could have inefficient cars with fewer emissions?
(1) The Bush League is generally wrong on constitutional issues, so it's a pretty safe bet that they're simply not allowed to stop state regulation.
(2) It's reasonable that the EPA be able to back up their rules with a little science. Or some argument. The empty box is a pretty vivid image.
Tackling global warming requires real, not just feel good solutions.
Just to confirm, you're here talking about large scale geoengineering?
Well running out of oil really quick should do the trick, as I think civilization would struggle to survive that in any way that would manage to sustain co2 emissions growth.
But, you know, really I'm making a pitch for nuclear power. This planet has a really bad relationship with humans consuming chemical energy. Time for solar fusion (i.e. solar and wind) and most viably terrestrial fission (uranium). I was in France recently, and if nothing else, it seemed pretty cool to turn on the lights with elements created in supernovae.
But yeah, the Bushies are incompetent. Even if they get things right, it's only because in doing enough stupid things probability dictates at least a few are bound to work out.
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